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Catherine Zeta-Jones says it wasn’t a stretch playing legendary actress Olivia de Havilland in Feud because she could relate to the struggles the Gone With The Wind actress faced during the golden years of Hollywood.

“I wasn’t discovered sipping a soda on Sunset Boulevard,” Zeta-Jones told the Star. “We have this rose-tinted glow of those times and the reality was that it was a cattle call. It was dog-eat-dog, completely territorial. You were being manipulated by the men who ran the studio.”

At 47, Zeta-Jones is still impossibly glamorous and the Academy Award-winning actress (for Chicago) has become Hollywood royalty herself. She co-stars in Ryan Murphy’s Feud, about the real life battle between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis on the set of the 1962 thriller What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?

The FX series has serious star power, with three Oscar winners, including Jessica Lange (Blue Sky, Tootsie) as Crawford and Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) as Davis. The show also stars Alfred Molina and Stanley Tucci.

While the series is about the war between the two actresses, it also looks at the Hollywood system and how women were treated during the earlier years when ageism and sexism were even more a part of the culture. Unfortunately, some things haven’t changed, says Zeta-Jones.

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“Growing up for myself it just sounded wo-onderful,” she says, enunciating her vowels in a languid, aristocratic way that perhaps isn’t all that different in tone from the real de Havilland. “I wanted to be a part of it. Although I’m from a different generation I came to realize that it’s not all autographs and sunglasses as they say. Back then, it was really tough for women.

“And it was a popularity contest. If you were in, the studio folk were behind you. They showed you in a wonderful light. But if you were out you could be ostracized; they would kick you out on a blacklist. It was a real tough time.”

Murphy, the powerhouse showrunner and creator of Glee, American Horror Story and The People v. O.J. Simpson has a remarkable ability to tap into pop culture in unexpected ways.

FX announced this week that they have ordered a second instalment in the Feud series, this time a 10-part look at the public relations battle between Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Feud has camp written all over it, particularly since audiences have been inundated with the trailer featuring garish, Technicolor graphics, but Murphy seems intent with his heavyweight acting choices to put some bones on the story.

“I wasn’t really interested in doing anything that was a camp fest,” Murphy told television critics in Los Angeles. “I was interested in going a little deeper and a little bit more emotional and painful. I think ultimately what happened to both women was painful.”

The real story seems implausible today, including one event that happened when Davis was nominated for an Oscar for her role in the film, but Crawford wasn’t. When Davis lost the award, Crawford had arranged to go onstage to take the trophy for winner Anne Bancroft, just so she could gleefully upstage Davis.

“It all seems so unreal,” says Zeta-Jones. “All the women were essentially in a popularity contest. It’s sad to think that women in the time were always made to look like they were fighting or bitching.”

One major exception: Davis and de Havilland would eventually become great friends.

“Bette wasn’t threatened by Olivia and Olivia wasn’t threatened by Bette. They had that great friendship,” says Zeta-Jones. “Olivia has this touch of royalty in her. She was born in Tokyo. She did Shakespeare. Her name alone sounded exotic. She was a very smart woman who didn’t take a lot of bulls--- at the time. She left Hollywood of her own accord. She went up against the studio heads. She wanted real stuff in her life and left for France. You didn’t do that then, much less now.”

Zeta-Jones, meanwhile, didn’t have far to go to do research. Her father-in-law happens to be Kirk Douglas (father of husband Michael Douglas), who knew most of the major actors of that era. Both Douglas and de Havilland celebrated their 100th birthdays in 2016.

Zeta-Jones said she tried to meet with de Havilland in France last year. But that didn’t happen because of the terrorist attack in Nice.

“It was a horrible tragedy and so we weren’t able to meet. But I hope I still get to see her,” says Zeta-Jones.

Working on the miniseries has given her a new perspective on how women are treated in Hollywood, says the Welsh actress, who started her career in the theatre before moving to the United States and being cast in films such as The Mask of Zorro and Traffic.

The normally private actress has spoken publicly about suffering from depression over the years, potentially triggered by her husband being diagnosed with throat cancer. And being in the Hollywood bubble likely didn’t help. She said at one point she had to stop going online to read comments about herself.

“To be in this business you really have to want it. You’re taking rejection from a very early age. And as the years go on you get more rejection and the roles start to wane. Then you have to explain to people why you’re not as popular. It’s not for the lighthearted. It’s a lot of endurance, a lot of knock downs. That’s something that’s never changed.”

A tour of the set of Feud

Recreating the glamour of old Hollywood in the FX miniseries Feud about the animosity between icons Joan Crawford and Bette Davis was left to set designer Judy Becker.

Becker was nominated for an Academy Award for her work on American Hustle. But she says this was one of her biggest challenges yet.

Becker treated TV critics to a tour of the set for Ryan Murphy’s new miniseries, including a recreation of Joan Crawford’s home and Perino’s, the famous circular restaurant frequented by the Rat Pack and the Hollywood elite. That Wilshire Blvd. hangout, where Davis had a permanent booth, has since been torn down to make room for an apartment building. But it lives on in Feud.

Some insights from Becker:

On Joan Crawford’s House

Crawford remained mostly in one home for decades, changing and updating the exterior. “I think in some ways she was thrifty and she was like, ‘If I can change it as opposed to moving,’ and she probably liked the location. But the house still exists and now looks like a 1980s McMansion.”

Crawford liked plastic slipcovers

“She had plastic slipcovers on everything. For real. I mean, there’s a lot of documentation of it, and my favourite photo is the one of her lying in bed with a plastic slipcover over the bedspread as she lies there. And that photo really exists. We didn’t make it up. So it’s pretty funny.”

Crawford had a refrigerator in her bathroom

“She could keep her Witch Hazel and her lemons and her ice cubes and her vodka, all of which were used to help preserve her appearance, except the vodka. And that was for her mental health.”

The Baby Jane set was deliberately made badly

“We reproduced that set as a film set, which was also a lot of fun. But the set looks pretty bad. When you look at the details, they were very sloppy, and we reproduced that because it was fun to do and film the way it really filmed.”

They used some furniture from the original film

“One thing that we were lucky enough to find because we are making this in Los Angeles, is some of the original furniture that was used on set . . . the piano and the sofa and the bird cage and some of the really key elements . . . we put them in the set. It was a pretty fun thing to do.”

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